System Tray Application

I want to create an application that will start off in the system tray without any initial form being displayed. The problem is that I can't seem to create such an application without including a NotifyIcon control on a form.

Isn't there any way to start an application in the system tray without the use of a form? Obviously I could just create an invisible form and have the NotifyIcon control on there but it seems a little unnecessary. Isn't there any other way?

hi there,

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for but if you put this in your Main() method, it should work...

Code:

---

NotifyIcon tray = new NotifyIcon();
// Used to grab the embedded bitmap
System.Reflection.Assembly assembly =
        System.Reflection.Assembly.GetCallingAssembly();
// The bitmap
Bitmap trayBitmap = (Bitmap)Bitmap.FromStream
        (assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("KeyStroke.MacJournal.ico"));
// Convert Bitmap to Icon
Icon trayIcon = Icon.FromHandle(trayBitmap.GetHicon());

tray.DoubleClick += new EventHandler(tray_DoubleClick);
tray.Icon = trayIcon;
trayIcon = null;
tray.Visible = true;

while(true)
{
        Application.DoEvents();
}

---

You could then use something like a Context Menu to add a menu to your tray application and use the double click event to show the form, which would be something like:

Code:

---

private static void tray_DoubleClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
        // Fire a new instance main form
        Form1 mainForm = new Form1();
        mainForm.Show();
        // Hide the tray Icon
        ((NotifyIcon)sender).Visible = false;
}

---

When the form first Loads, is there an alternate way of hiding the form, because
Application.DoEvents();
causes unwanted outcome when responding to user events...

this.Hide();
doesn't work, so
How else can i just hide the form from the users eyes???